Few franchises have such deep and strong roots as The Legend of Zelda. Ever since its first appearance in the NES it has been a standard in quality and interesting gameplay (except, of course, for some exceptions, you know what I mean). As E3 is now fading from our discussions and minds, the series has gotten new attention, accentuated by the long awaited Sequelitis episode that recently was uploaded in Youtube. On one hand we have an avid and quite perceptive gamer arguing the loss of exploration, the sense of awe and wonder as the series has progressed, on the other we have an explicit promise by the developers in Nintendo that the world will turn into an open world experience.

Exploring is usually synonymous to Zelda. The idea of finding a secret was always one of the thing we took for granted when playing the games. But then Egoraptor reminds us that it is not always what it seems. Specially the streamlining of dungeons shows us how using a basic structure we can eliminate the excitement of discovery in a game. I think this was one of the most interesting points made in his comment: instead of letting us wonder what to do with x item, we know it will be there to kill the corresponding boss of the dungeon. I have always been more a 2-D Zelda player, and this problem is part of even the best of those handheld games. The Oracle of Seasons/Ages, for example, are specially faulty in this regard (I still love them, though).

Then came A Link Between Worlds. Apart from this being the game that made me buy a 2DS, I pretty much thought the game had a nifty twist, part of which I already discussed in a previous article. The idea of the already looted items, all taken from their respective dungeons, eliminated the enslavement of the player to the dungeon-specific item. Only the first three dungeons require a specific item, which you can rent for a moment. So why have all those other items then? Well, they serve to explore the world. If you noticed, a common complaint of some reviewers (one example here) is that the game was short, easy to finish. I feel this was on purpose. The dungeons themselves were short, easy to finish in less than half an hour. This had two functions: first to keep the game handheld friendly, since nobody wants to interrupt a dungeon and restart it later, since handheld’s focus has always been to quickly play and to be able to stop at any moment. But the second main objective of short dungeons was to make the player explore the world, instead of focusing only on the cave you had to get to. I think that fact was missed by many gamers, who were so used to the usual “Zelda Formula”, that they forgot that there was life under the sun of Hyrule/Lorule. A completionist would see it all, but a regular gamer such as myself could have missed the heightened exploration factor of the game. And it gets even worse when suddenly you are dropped in a new world and you have eight lairs to get to, but you have not the usual numbers or limitations as in A Link to the Past and forward. I personally loved it: I was now free to skip the dungeon with the guards entirely, so I could do, what is to me, the busy work until the last. I loved the freedom, and more Zelda games should strive to this end.

There is still the question on how guided a game should be. I can agree that the latest Zeldas have this issue, in which they block your path until you get x item, and also tell you to do this first and then that, much like a chore. But then there is the issue of conveyance, something Egoraptor himself discusses at one point. My biggest gripe with the two NES Zeldas and why I think they don’t hold up anymore is that they don’t guide you, they are way to cryptic. A little guidance is necessary to know what is happening. Exploration should not be limited by too much hand holding, but at the same time it should not be too free, since this confuses the player more than making the game enjoyable. Again, A Link Between Worlds does this masterfully: yes, here are your eight dungeons, however, you have no order and you are free to explore each section as you like.

That’s where I think A Link to the Past and A Link Between Worlds represent the main theme of Zelda perfectly. Maybe in the first game you have a few numbers of the map, but they are for the most part open, and you can progress at your pace. There is no need to get a letter of play a song to make someone happy to progress. The latter one even omits numbers and almost every limitation, giving you the chance to really look into the “overworld” and sometimes even forget the main quest.

I think this is the kind of exploration most of us would like. Not hand holding, but neither total freedom and a loss of sense of direction. Some guidance is necessary, but not too restrictive as to keep you technically on a straight path with a little fork at the end, as Ocarina of Time did.

These are, at least, my two cents on this rich discussion that has erupted. I think there is much to be expected from the new game that will come up, specially on this new focus of letting the player regain control over his action and let him do what games best let us do: to determine our own actions and to live with the decisions made in game.

I love The Legend of Zelda. I may not have played each one of its iterations, I may not have completed them all 100%. But every time I have a second on my busy life, I just play them. I enjoy the mechanics, the bosses and sometimes even the silly stories. Heck, I even bought a 2DS just to play the most recent title, A Link Between Worlds.

How has it fared for me? In my opinion it was fantastic. In some friends’ opinion it was just a “meh”. But here I am a bit more biased, not because of my fandom, since my friends are fans too, but due to my attention to the story. Because the designers, inadvertently or not, have included an interesting facet into the game mechanics.

I once complained about the fact that in many sequels, the super powered player by some unexplained chance had become dwarfed, losing all the items he had at disposition, as well as power-ups and other neat stuff. In TLoZ this was often avoided by creating so called “sequels” where the hero was a reborn form of some ancestor. Thus a loophole was averted effectively. Not a big one, but a nitpick nonetheless.

When I heard that LBW was a sequel to probably the best Zelda ever, I was a bit dubious about how it would work out. But the world was familiar, but different, which I took much enjoyment in.

There was the issue of the items, which were technically all at disposition since the beginning of the game. Many found that a bit off putting, but for me it was a great stroke of genius. It was not the game mechanic that fascinated me here, but the “meta-history” behind this concept.

But what is meta history? Unlike meta story, which is technically a secondary story that runs in the background of a game to set the tone and the mood of the general game, meta-history refers to the history that runs from one sequel to another, as in how the change across the years/decades/centuries run by in the fictional game world or even the history that affects how we can relate to the game/work of fiction. There are many examples of this in fiction.

Let’s take, for example Tolkien’s books to explain the concept. The Hobbit as we know it today is not the original version. The 1937 edition told the chapter of “Riddles in the Dark” totally different: Gollum offered the Ring as a gift and, upon discovering that Bilbo already had it, offered him to guide him out of the mountain. When the author took the time to make the sequel, he had to create link to the Lord of the Rings. He decided to make the Ring that link and rewrote the story to match, more or less, the moods.

How did he excuse this change? He simply determined that the first version was old corrupted Bilbo’s point of view. Frodo wrote the second, more “correct”, version after the events of Lord of the Rings. That Red Book was taken to Gondor, while Bilbo’s Red Book stayed safely in Rivendell. In other words, there were two versions in different libraries, and all Tolkien did was translate those books, discovering two points of view on the same story, as it happens with many historic events. Thus we have now two editions, the old one being Bilbo’s book and the new one being Frodo’s.

This is a prime example of meta-history. When there was something that contradicted in the editions of the books, instead of accepting it as a mistake, the author invented a historical reason within the framework of his fictitious world for the apparent mistake, integrating them thus in a much more creative evolution of the books and giving them a fake history.

How does the new Zelda accomplish this? The Hyrule we play at in LBW is the same as the one in Link to the Past. This means that the previous Link, who lived centuries ago, had already looted the dungeons, thus rendering them empty of legendary artifacts. The fact that Ravio has all the items in his possession could thus mean (this is purely conjectural) that he bought them all from collectors or found them in ancient graves and other places outside the dungeons. Granted, some objects, like the blue suit, are still in dungeons, but they are in another dimension, which does not contradict the idea of the emptied dungeons.

In other words, there is a historic reason for the new mechanic. I don’t know if the designers at Nintendo did it on purpose, but the mere idea that the treasure was now obtainable without the need to enter a dungeon was incredible. I liked the game because of this. Now all I had to do was to rent/buy the items from a greedy salesman and I felt there had been really a previous Link who had taken out all treasures and inherited (or maybe even sold) them to other people.

This is a minor detail in the grand total of a great game, but definitely one that gives more life to the fictional world provided. This again shifted the whole idea on how you approach dungeons, making thus Dark Hyrule even more open ended, since we did not need to scavenge for the treasure anymore.

Now that specific Hyrule had an history, and now the sequel felt even more like one. It is just that little detail, the meta-historic detail, that gives us a deeper world to explore and imagine – had this particular thing been on purpose or not.

This issue may be eternally discussed. This problem is just what many gamers come to ask when a good franchise takes hold. Maybe today it is less an issue than twenty years ago. But boy!, how many times have we asked ourselves after playing Mega Man or The Legend of Zelda or any similar game: what happens with all the cool stuff?

Sequels are many times long-awaited games that just let us bask in the goodness of a great system, a great story or just a great character that inspires us. Recently I had played Mega Man X and, once finished, I started the next part when the problem bugged me again. I had killed eight Mavericks, destroyed an airship and cooled a lava factory down, getting every power up. I was all-powerful now and ready to get the rest of the enemy robots when I realized that Mega Man had become a wimp again… but how?

Let us just recap the beginning of Mega Man X 2: you are looking for your enemy. That is it. No explanation to what happened to your awesome weaponry, how the heck you disposed of such useful implements. You just start a weakling again. Do not misunderstand me here. I know that the games are supposed to start hard and that you have to grow, so you can feel accomplished. In the dawn of gaming not much thought was given to the issue.

For example Zelda. In the first part you have all items from the dungeons. In the second you have to find the candle again. And some of the objects of the first part… are buried in a lair again! How did the enemy do that? I sometimes wonder how crafty an evil guy can be to be, at the end, just beat because they gave us enough time to get all back again.

There have been some good solutions to that. For example, in Ultima VII, when you start the expansion pack The Serpent Isle, you immediately get smashed by teleporting lightnings. All you can keep at the end is aq few rocks. It may sound really mean, but it was a good excuse for the disappearance of your already powerful gear. In Zelda’s Link’s Awakening you actually set out on a voyage and your boat sinks. The only thing you can savage from the wreckage is your sword and your shield. Those were good excuses.

In Mega Man, nothing is said. Maybe Wily dresses up as a servant in your house and takes all away. Although it does not explain why he does not reuse some of the stuff up to Mega Man 7. Every Zelda game starts with a wimpy Link with three hearts. How does that happen?

Nobody will know for certain what happens between each sequel. The games are not bad, and the suspension of disbelief only lasts a few minutes and becomes later a joke, but it is still this detail that always comes into the mind of any gamer and his favourite series. Not all do that, though. So now it is time to get into wild suppositions on what happens with your things every new game. As for me, between Mega Man X 1 and 2, I always suppose our dear hero just left the things at home and he can’t find them anymore. And he is extremely lazy. What do you think guys? If something like that happens in your favourite franchise, what do you speculate? There must be some really creative answers out there! Just comment.

When it comes to The Legend of Zelda, I think that I just praise it too much. Every time I play one of those games I get overly excited and I just love to take Link all over Hyrule (or wherever he is in that moment) and just explore the different places it offers. If there is a series that has definitely conquered my heart, it is that one specifically. But where does that strange love come from? It all can be answered in one of the older Nintendo game systems.

Long before emulation, long before this huge explosion in mainstream, long before I was a real gamer myself, there was the Game Boy. I had played before the NES and my parents kept hiding an Atari 2600 in their closet, which I occasionally got to play. But my first real gaming system was the portable one. I kept saving my lunch money for weeks, even did some paid chores, to get my own Game Boy, since my parents did not want me to have one. Once they noticed they could not beat me on what I wanted, they even helped a little bit.

Needless to say, my first own game was… Tetris. Now, this one was the stock game and, in my specific case, also a crappy tennis game that was included in an offer. Now, the first game has its own story, but I think most of you enjoyed it like crazy. The same happened to me.

Now, for the next game I saved up for this cartridge inside a golden box that had drawn my attention. A friend of mine recommended it to me a lot. So, after a lot of excitement building up, I finally managed to get my hands on a copy of The Legend of Zelda: Link’s Awakening. A game I put great expectations in, and although it was not what I had imagined, it bewildered me forever. Just to tell you how much I liked it, I will mention that it is the game that I finished most of the times with 100% of the items. And I would, still now, do it again.

Getting the sword!

Now, what made this game a gem? Well, I can’t quite put my finger on it. But there are multiple reasons we could approach to: there is the exploration, which I was a fan of, the strange characters like the Stalfos that stole my dungeon item, the lady with the miraculous potion and that weird Walrus that blocked my way.

Also, there was a lot of action. From one side to the other I killed a myriad of creatures, each one in its own specific enviroment, each one with a new detail. Also the dungeons were interesting. Short, that may be (except for the seventh), but all had something new.

The game felt very well-rounded, except for the last two lairs (seven and eight), because their items were barely used in the game. But it was a consistent game with an interesting story, and though the programmers forgot to deepen the philosophical part, it really made me consider if I should just finish the game or if there was a second ending in which the island was not a dream. The game was so good that both flaws were easily forgotten, and only come to my mind because I have grown up and become more critical than when I was ten years old.

The ultimate goal: to wake up by awakening the Wind Fish.

Maybe it is not the greatest game in the series, but it holds a special place in my heart. Even though I already stated that A Link to the Past was my favourite, Link’s Awakening is a close second, followed by Twilight Princess. This gem the Game Boy had to offer really would leave any Zelda fan satisfied with what they had just played and I still recommend it. On Hella’s name, I even recommend it over the Game Boy Color version which, even though it had some extra stuff, really felt like some thrown-in things with no real sense and that took the whole experience off-balance. But maybe this is just me.

In any case, if you have never played it before and you are interested in a quick and fun adventure, I definitely do recommend to get this game. It will surely not be forgotten, specially after playing the seventh lair, in which you had to carry a wrecking ball around the tower to knock one whole floor down to be able to kill the boss. Yeah, it was that crazy!

The Legend of Zelda is one of the greatest franchises ever created. Nintendo, when re-building the gaming industry after the crash of the 80s, really produced hit after hit. You can demonstrate it by just observing how many of these games are lately turning 25 years: Metal Gear, Mario Bros., Metroid… definitely I would dare to call the NES-era one of the golden times of videogaming.

Specially Zelda holds a dear place in our hearts. How many times, after all, did we go ahead and save her? Across the wide lands of Hyrule and other kingdoms, time and even universes our hero link has restlessly picked up item after item to rid the world of evil and, more specifically, Ganondorf (although not always).

I may have not played every game, but I am definitely enthralled by every new one that comes out. Twilight Princess is the only reason I am planning to buy a Wii!

But then there is the other side to this fandom. During years the community, loyal to their Zelda games, have been discussing the order of the games in a timeline that would sound as convincing as possible. Multiple videos have come out in response, and many more articles joined to discuss such a matter. It has come up to ending friendships!

Recently, while browsing my usual favourite game reviews and bits of information I stumbled across the last episode of Clearing the Confusion, a very interesting series in which NecroVMX gives us an outline on sequels and storylines of the different most popular games ever released, no matter if it was in Japan or the world. This particular episode one was dedicated to the game we are about to tackle… or to be more specific, the fandom around it.

The video is 30 minutes long and definitely worth a watch. At the end he basically gives his opinion on the whole “creating a timeline” issue that has plagued the Zelda fans for years. In a nutshell he beseeches the community to just enjoy the games and leave the timeline the way Nintendo envisioned it when they released the most recent installment, Skyward Sword. Now, even though I like the idea of just enjoying the games, as they were intended to be used, I can not share the criticism towards the fans of the series.

In an alternative, much earlier review, AVGN also had a few words on this particular expression of fandom. For him it was a sign of the passion that many gamers displayed towards their favourite series. Despite all the swearing he usually does, I must agree on that. Enjoying the game goes much times beyond just sitting in front of the T.V. and pressing the right buttons. It is about, and specially in this day and age, to share the experiences with others, to discuss the game and to expand it beyond its limits.

I must be honest, until I saw the AVGNs review, I had never thought that there should be a timeline for the Zelda games. And even now I am reluctant to even think of that. For me every story has its own unique take on almost the same legend, unless it is explicitly a sequel to a previous game (like it happens in Zelda 2). I always thought it would be too bothersome to try to find some coherence from game to game. But some fans did. And I do not criticize them for that. It is great for them to take the work and to do this. It is in their freedom to try to figure this out, however useless it may be. It is, after all, their way of experiencing the game.

What I do not condole is that the passions just get out of hand. In other words, I do not agree with ending friendships over such a detail. This effort of putting the games in a timeline is just a way to express fandom. I never ever fought my friends when we tried to explaining a detail on an orc’s way of life. Sure, we would debate heatedly, but at the end we would just nod and agree that the discussion was useless… and thus fun. In other words, the discussion should never affect a real life. Because that is what really should underline the criticism towards fandom.

I am not a fanboy in the sense that everything I see about my music, games or books drives me nuts. As a historian myself I have learned that going to the extremes just provokes more trouble than it is worth anything. Discussion, no matter what levels they are on, should always reach a healthy quota. If you can not understand the other person, then why bother? We are not defining the destiny of humanity itself!

In any case, the accusations made by NecroVMX, whether intended or not, are not really ideal. I understand what he’s trying to say, since some fanboys exaggerate a lot and one as a gamer can get fed up by it. But we can not condemn a whole fandom just because of some bad apples!

When the topic is Zelda, it always brings back good memories. I am not the man who played EVERY “The Legend of Zelda” game that ever existed, but every time I did, I enjoyed it vey much. The legend of Zelda introduced me, after Mario, into the gaming world, since the first one I saw being played was the second one on the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES).

Now, with the publication of the “Game Grumps” channel, in the first chapter of the playthrough of the SNES version, an interesting point was brought up by Jontron and Egoraptor. While discussing if “A Link to the Past” is better than “The Ocarina of Time”, they mention that the latter one is a master piece despite its mistakes. Now, to be one of the popular ones of the series, this is a strange opinion.
There is a truth to it, since the N64 version was the first Zelda to be made in 3D, while the SNES version was already the third one made in the overhead view (technically second, considering that “The Legend of Zelda 2” mas made in many parts as a platformer). Thus we have two totally different situations. If we want to make a parallel, we have to also compare “Ocarina of Time” to the first game in the series.

When “The Legend of Zelda” was published, it was a grand new adventure. Miyamoto, the mastermind behind the production of this game, had hit the nail again. The already popular home gaming system NES gained a new jewel that we, up to today behold as very precious. But, as any first try on any game idea it had its flaws. Not so recently ago I got a remake for this game on the Game Boy Advance, in the hopes to try to relive some of the moments that had made for me this cartridge the cult classic that had inspired so many great sequels. Then I remembered the horror.

Don’t get me wrong here. I am not saying that it is a bad game. But the problems of the game were oftentimes a bit frustrating, and back then, while playing it on small screen, I remembered why I had never even finished the story. It all was in the way the game carried you along the progression, or better said, how it did not guide you at all.

Now, don’t get me wrong here either! I am used to bad conveyance. My preferred game genre is the RPG, which is, especially in the first years, known for letting a player wonder where to go. But in “The Legend of Zelda” it took a new dimension. To understand what I mean, we have to set our minds to the situation:

When you initiate the game, you start at a place. Period. Three exits and one cave, not more. No sign, no arrow, nothing to help you. When I played it the first time as a child, I vaguely remember, the first thing I did was take one of the normal pathways, just to die in a terrible massacre… then another one… then another one. At one point I must have realized that the cave mas the key to start the game. You could argue I was already too used to “Link to the Past”, and I can agree with you totally on that, but still, this start was terribly confusing. Maybe game standards were different back then, but even in Final Fantasy the first thing they did was tell you where to start.

And it gets worse as you progress to the game. Something I can’t do, up to now, is locate the first dungeon! I do reach some dungeons, but I am never sure which one is the first one. It was always frustrating to enter one of the levels and utterly be defeated by an impassible obstacle. Why? Because you had entered a dungeon sooner than intended. As a kid I soon lost interest in the game. A not-so-hardcore player would have done the same

But why does something like this happen? For us today it is more than obvious to put a hint on where to start a game and what order to follow a certain set of castles and other levels and worlds. But back then it was not thought necessary. How so? We have to remember here that it was one of the first of its kind. The great thing of “A Link to the Past” is that it has already another two games for experience. That’s why it has all its consistence. The mistakes made in the past are now repaired. I really thought that putting a cave was not an obvious first choice to explore for everyone… what if it was a dungeon?

The same situation happens with “Ocarina of Time”. Zelda had not been imagined as a 3D game yet, but it had to start the transition to be sure that it would work out. As far as I know it did not only work out, but it also became an instant classic. Even with faulty mechanics or glitches, a game can make it into a classic. But when we compare games of a different epoch, we always have to take the situation as a help. When it goes to my preferred game, I choose “A Link to the Past”. It is more mature and it has a great story. If we compare the 3D Zeldas, I prefer “Twilight Princess”. The mechanics there are excellently well programmed and the game feels mature in its execution. It may be unfair to compare the game on the N64 like this, but at the end it is just a matter of taste, since most enjoy the great story of the latter one.

Because even if I don’t prefer those games, I still think they are pretty good. So much that anyone can overlook certain problems it may have and enjoy it. I, on my side, will always prefer the SNES version, never forgetting the value of its predecessors that gave the experience to make my favorite adventure/RPG game ever. Plus, I recommend to play them anyways. They may have some faults and they may get frustrating, but you will have fun nonetheless!

May they smile upon your way!

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Welcome to a blog of gaming, movies, books and some history. In here I explore the stories that have carried us over decades, yes, even centuries, to what defines us today. I hope you enjoy it and comment, I am always open to respond!
This blog is updated whenever possible, once a week.